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Getting Involved
I am pleased to say that my call for more help over the Bonfire Rally weekend was answered,especially to help dismantle the site after the event. The weekend went very well with a good turn out of boats and an excellent display of fireworks. We had to make certain changes to the site layout to meet the conditions laid down for the insurance of the event. As ever it is a team event and my thanks for all who came forward to lend a hand.
Talking of getting involved, following the AGM Andy Meek offered his help and he has joined the council to look after publicity, however he is also keen to get involved with events such as the BCN Challenge. Andy has also been a regular supporter of our workparties.
Bradley Lock Flight
At the AGM there was some discussion regarding our involvement in restoration of Brdaley Locks and restoring navigation from the truncated end of the Wednesbury Oak loop, the original BCN mainline and the Walsall Canal at Moorcroft Junction. Certainly the feeling of the meeting was to support our involvement and we are now in discussion with IWA and British Waterways as to how we can move forward on this.
Edward Paget-Tomlinson
As many you will have read in the waterways press Edward Paget-Tomlinson the canal historian and artist died in hospital on the 12th November. Edward and I became good friends after I contacted him regarding the BCN A-Z series, which he had agreed to illustrate for Boundary Post. He and I had similar tastes; he was also interested in the wider transport world and my mother's family come from Liverpool where Edward had been employed in the Museum as Keeper of shipping, so we had much in common.
What followed was a number of visits to Edward's home in Somerset together with a voluminous amount of correspondence between us on all sorts of matters. Generally it was a request from myself for help, to which Edward would always offer assistance and provide information or make suggestions as to who might know answers to my questions.
He also undertook a series of gauche paintings of BCN tugs for me and he was always keen to produce these as he felt that it was a useful project to record the decoration of the tugs. This led to the production of the 2003 Waterways World Calendar based on information he had gathered about Ken Keay's dock and the boats painted there. But whatever he was illustrating it was produced with an eye for the detail born of a wide knowledge of the subject.
Edward was a generous man who enthusiastically gave of his time and will be very much missed. His wife Pam, their son John and daughter Lucy have our deepest sympathy.
As a way of a small tribute to Edward we are looking at holding an exhibition of some of his work at the Pumphouse during the summer. We also reproduce one of Edward's paintings in the centre pages of this issue. It shows the BCN tug Christopher James towing Helen on the Wyrley & Essington Canal in Little Bloxwich while a Walsall Corporation trolley bus crosses the bridge behind.
Christopher James was built at the Spencer Abbotts yard at Salford Junction where Les Allen was foreman boatbuilder. Interestingly, both boats have been at various times in the ownership of Society members and both are still active around the system.
